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Sebastian Vettel said he was happy with the speed of his car, but that he was never able to get in a position to win in Hungary. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Vettel fourth as Red Bull F1 team fails to capitalize

July 28, 2012

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Sebastian Vettel says that he had the speed to do better than fourth in Hungary, but he needs to qualify and start better to exploit it.

From third on the grid Vettel was passed by Jenson Button at the first corner. He later got ahead again when Button pitted, but having lost time while stuck behind the McLaren, he was eventually jumped at the second pit stops by Kimi Räikkönen.

Later he made an extra pit stop so he could finish the race on fresh tires, having gotten far enough ahead of Fernando Alonso to ensure that he would hold onto fourth even with a stop.

“I think it was probably not the result we could have had today,” Vettel said. “Our speed was a little bit better than that. Jenson was quite slow, and we lost quite a lot. But obviously you can't just pit and come out in clean air; there's traffic. Other people weren't that much slower, either.

“We thought that we'd try something. Obviously it could have been the case that their tires fall 'off the cliff', which wasn't the case. So we'll try next time.

“I think a two-stop would not have change anything, so it was just following Romain around. Trying to something different was I think the right thing. It was marginal coming out ahead of Fernando, but it was good. It could have been a different story, their tires could have fallen off.

“It didn't happen this time. We did everything we could from a strategy point of view, which lost a little bit too much in the first corner and particularly to Jenson, who was very slow, and we lots too much time to the guys ahead.”

Vettel insisted that he wasn't too disappointed.

“I'm not frustrated, it was not a boring afternoon for me. I was fighting as much as I could, I was pushing hard. That's what I'm here for. We finished fourth, we didn't win. If I win then I'm happy. If you're fourth . . . today I have to accept it, but you're not as happy as if you win.

“I finished ahead of Fernando, but not a lot. Race pace was quite good, so it's up to us to have better starts in the future. And probably one or two better steps in qualifying, and then it's a different race.”